Above is one of the key illustrations for the Jack Daniel's "Toast Birthday Campaign." Follow the steps in this article to see how the illustration evolved from concept, to pencil roughs, to revisions, and finally to finished art.

Above are a few of the ads that were produced for the Jack Daniel's "Toast Birthday Campaign."
Click a thumbnail to see a larger view.

This project for Jack Daniel's Tennessee Whiskey came to me from my artist representative in New York, Tim Mendola of Mendola Artist. Tim forwarded to me an email from Virginia Plasz (agency producer) of Arnold Worldwide, the agency handling this campaign for Jack Daniel's. Virginia described this project titled "Toast Birthday Campaign" in the email:

Tim-

Please find attached and below information on the Jack Daniel’s project for which we are interested in Mike Halbert.
The Toast Campaign is for Jack's Birthday celebration which lasts through the month of September and is primarily in the UK but is sometimes picked up by other nations as well. The woodcut style we have chosen is based on the use of similar work on the side label of the bottle (see attached) and the illustration of the bottle that appears in many of our ads.

The campaign will require the following illustrations:

• two variations of the frame and scroll work
• one border illustration
• our center illustrations (two portraits of Jack, one illustration of the courthouse, one TBD)

There will be no type to illustrate, we will set it ourselves.Layouts are attached for reference.
We would like unlimited use, worldwide, in perpetuity.
Budget is approximately ?????.
Please call with any questions.

Thanks!

Virginia

Fortunately, I was awarded the job, and Virginia along with Lee Walters (art director at Arnold) began feeding me instructions and reference material for the project.

In the next steps of this article, I will focus on just one of the illustrations from the campaign; the illustration shown at the top left of this page, and show the process of working with the client to complete a successful illustration.